Many critics raise the concern that parents who do not have degrees in education, may not be qualified to teach children at home. They claim that homeschooled students's academic achievement is limited when they're educated by a lay parent in the home environment.

Research has shown that the opposite is true; that in fact, the educational level of the parents and their income level do have an influence on a child's academic achievement in public schools, but NOT in the homeschool.

Homeschool students score above average on achievement tests regardless of their parents’ level of formal education or their family’s household income. Whether homeschool parents were ever certified teachers is not related to their children’s academic achievement.

Successful education is not a measure of how much the educator (parent) knows
but rather how well the student learns.

Figure 1 shows that homeschool students with parents that are NOT certified teachers, perform similarly in achievement tests compared homeschool students who have at least one parents that are certified.

Figure 1 shows that homeschool students with parents that are NOT certified teachers, perform similarly in achievement tests compared homeschool students who have at least one parents that are certified.

Excerpt from the book "Strengths of Their Own", by Dr. Brian Ray, President of the National Home Education Research Institute:

"Home education may be conducive to eliminating the potential negative effects of certain background factors. Low family income, low parental educational attainment, parents not having formal training as teachers, race or ethnicity of the student, gender of the student, not having a computer in the home, infrequent usage of public services (e.g., public libraries), a child commencing formal education relatively later in life, relatively small amounts of time spent in formal educational activities, and a child having a large (or small) number of siblings seem to have little influence on the academic achievement of the home educated. (Several references were provided earlier.) More specifically, in home education, educational attainment of parents, gender of student, and income of family may have weaker relationships to academic achievement than they do in public schools.”

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